Friday, 21 March 2014

Effective Altruists or Extreme Paternalists

Rhys Southan is swayed but thankfully not completely
persuaded by ‘Effective Altruists’ begging of the question: ‘is it OK to make
art?’ in his article appearing in Aeon
recently. The foundational principle of
the EA movement is that all human action should be focused on the alleviation
of suffering. This might sound a
laudable goal, particularly if the action is directed toward reducing global
poverty and injustice and promoting health and well-being. But this activist movement is much more than
raising awareness and encouraging charity.
Rather, it makes some naked assertions about the meaning of life - that it is the sum total of subjective
well-being – and purports to be in a position to direct how individuals should
make their livelihoods.

EA wraps itself in a blanket of moral imperative, without
providing a firm foundation of such, other than its own ethical judgments,
based on monetary metrics. Furthermore,
we’ve learned from decades of mismanaged, misdirected and miscoordinated aid
efforts that development is a complicated business. It’s often institutions and governance which
are the heart of deprivation and suffering.
In certain circumstances these might be better addressed by changes in
terms of trade, taxation, labour laws as well as corporate, federal and local
governance reform. What people in
poverty need more than anything else is to participate in their local, national
or international economy with the skills and talents they possess, not to just
receive aid from high earning individuals.

I find the stance of EA to be not just paternalistic but
patronising and imperialistic. The
argument that a forex trader working for a large investment bank manipulating
libor, but giving a tenth of his or her income to charity is somehow worth more
to the world than that individual conducting an orchestra but making less money
is absurd, particularly if that manipulation causes hundreds of small
businesses to go bust.

EA would argue that if the orchestra conductor can make more
money as a forex trader, but really enjoys making music, well tough. What about the suffering the forex trader
inflicts on his friends and family of doing something he/she doesn’t’ really
want to do but is dictated to do so by the strictures of utilitarianism – like some
overarching karmic dictator, always calculating, quantifying the monetary worth
of every second spent earning. There’s
also the presumption that all suffering occurs in developing countries. What about all those in poverty in London,
pushed out of affordable housing by rich forex dealers and Russian
oligarchs? What about all those
suffering at the hands of very rich, donating domestic abusers?

By their own criteria, EA appears to ignore the enormous
economic engine that are the creative industries. In the UK, these sectors generate as much as
the financial one. Not to mention the
scores of jobs and spillover into services and manufacturing that creatives
produce. EA, do your research. See the work of BOP Consulting. In addition, it’s widely recognised that the
arts are one of the most powerful ways to address mental illness and emotional
abuse – see the work of the Art Therapy Alliance.
The arts have been one of the most productive and powerful ways in which
deprived individuals have been able to work their way out of poverty.

Effective altruism is an ideology based on its own strict ethical
judgments. They base their denouncement of
the arts on the notion of replacability – that most artists aren’t very good
and that they are easily replaced, ergo there should be fewer of them. Sounds
like they’ve ditched the importance of freedom so beloved of John Stuart
Mill. Radical ideologies lead to serious
problems, and EA is just such a one – radically reductive and effectively paternalistic.